From owner-constitution@andromeda.68k.org Thu Sep 18 00:01:17 1997 Date: Thu, 18 Sep 1997 02:00:07 -0500 From: owner-constitution-digest@lsmsaaa.org (LSMSAAA Constitution Digest) To: constitution-digest@68k.org Subject: LSMSAAA Constitution Digest V1 #12 Reply-To: constitution@andromeda.68k.org Sender: owner-constitution-digest@lsmsaaa.org Errors-To: owner-constitution-digest@lsmsaaa.org Precedence: bulk LSMSAAA Constitution Digest Thursday, September 18 1997 Volume 01 : Number 012 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 16 Sep 1997 13:08:38 -0400 (EDT) From: Dennis Voss Subject: RE:Section 7.1 -- Officer Eligibility (fwd) Date: Mon, 16 Sep 1997 03:35:21 GMT From: roosevelt@linknet.net To: Dennis Voss Subject: RE:Section 7.1 -- Officer Eligibility Resent-Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 23:34:11 -0400 (EDT) Steve, I'm in Dallas, so I'm not accessing my e-mail from my home. Could you, please, forward this to the rest of the convention? Thanks. >7.1 Eligibility to hold office > (a) The President and Vice President of the LSMSAAA each >must be a Graduate Member or Lifetime Member; no others may >assume these posts through election, succession or appointment. > (b) The Treasurer and Recording Secretary each must be an >active member of the LSMSAAA. > (c) The Natchitoches Liaison must be a member of the LSMSAAA >who resides within 75 miles of Natchitoches or is a student >enrolled at Northwestern State University. I'm not quite sure (especially since I just slept through the ride from Alexandria to Dallas yesterday) whether this 75 mile radius includes Shreveport. Does it include Ruston? I think that anyone living in either area should be elligible to serve as Natchitoches liaison; if a stretch of this threshold is necessary, I don't think it terribly unreasonable of a stretch to include Shreveport and/or Ruston. Yours, Big D in Big D Donald R. Caplan LSMSA 1993 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Sep 1997 10:15:57 -0700 (PDT) From: "Andre' DeHon" Subject: Re: Section 7.1 -- Officer Eligibility > > You do specify "job providing remuneration" -- and being a member > > of the board of directors is (as far as I know) a non-paid job. > > Exactly. Being an actual *member* of the Board is not the same thing as > being an *employee* of the Board. If you are concerned, I could add a > specific exclusion of per diems from what is considered "remuneration." yes, something to this effect. (d) No President, Vice President, Treasurer or Recording Secretary of the LSMSAAA may be employed by the Louisiana School or the LSMSA Board of Directors, if such a job provides any form of remuneration beyond [per diem expenses for travel to board meetings?]. This does not disclude such officers from being members of the board of directors itself as long as they are not also employess of the board or school. The Natchitoches and Louisiana School liaisons may hold such employment. > I'll give you an example of what I'm trying to prevent: > Last May the school negotiated with me about the possibility of taking a > job there. If I had accepted, I would have become dependent upon LSMSA > for my livelihood. Such a situation clearly would limit my independence. > The LSMSAAA President shouldn't be so vulnerable. I assume the succession section will deal with the event where an officer is, mid term, hired by LSMSA ? Andre' ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Sep 1997 10:29:07 -0700 (PDT) From: "Andre' DeHon" Subject: Re: Section 7.1 -- Officer Eligibility (fwd) > I'm not quite sure (especially since I just slept through the ride from Alexandria to Dallas yesterday) whether > this 75 mile radius includes Shreveport. Does it include Ruston? I think that anyone living in either area > should be elligible to serve as Natchitoches liaison; if a stretch of this threshold is necessary, I don't think it > terribly unreasonable of a stretch to include Shreveport and/or Ruston. According to tripquest : Shreveport->Natchitoches (city to city distances only) - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ City to City Directions From: Shreveport, LA To: Natchitoches, LA Direction Distance 1: Go Southeast on US 71 to State Rte 1 0.6 miles (1.0 km) 2: Go Southeast on State Rte 1 to State Rte 526 6.0 miles (10.1 km) 3: Go Southwest on State Rte 526 to I-49 2.8 miles (4.7 km) 4: Go Southeast on I-49 to State Rte 6 60.1 miles (101.6 km) 5: Go East on State Rte 6 3.0 miles (5.1 km) Total Distance: 72.5 miles (122.5 km) - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ City to City Directions From: Ruston, LA To: Natchitoches, LA Direction Distance 1: Go South on US 167 to State Rte 4 21.5 miles (36.3 km) 2: Go West on State Rte 4 to State Rte 155 12.5 miles (21.1 km) 3: Go Southwest on State Rte 155 to State Rte 9 6.0 miles (10.1 km) 4: Go Southwest on State Rte 9 to US 71 20.0 miles (33.8 km) 5: Go Southeast on US 71 to State Rte 6 8.2 miles (13.9 km) 6: Go Southwest on State Rte 6 10.8 miles (18.3 km) Total Distance: 79.0 miles (133.5 km) - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Note that both of these are driving miles, not "as the crow flies" miles. Andre' ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Sep 1997 15:49:36 -0400 (EDT) From: Dennis Voss Subject: Section 7.1 (version 2) He's a rewrite of Section 7.1. It clarifies that serving on the LSMSA Board of Directors does not qualify as being "employed" by them, but otherwise makes no substantive change. Using my compass, I checked to see what constituted 75 miles from Natchitoches, and in fact Shreveport, Ruston, Monroe, and Alexandria all qualify. Indeed, 75 miles almost gets you to Lake Charles. So no worry there. And becoming ineligible is covered under succession rules, as you'll see shortly. steve 7.1 Eligibility to hold office (a) The President and Vice President of the LSMSAAA each must be a Graduate Member or Lifetime Member; no others may assume these posts through election, succession or appointment. (b) The Treasurer and Recording Secretary each must be an active member of the LSMSAAA. (c) The Natchitoches Liaison must be a member of the LSMSAAA who resides within 75 miles of Natchitoches or is a student enrolled at Northwestern State University. (d) No President, Vice President, Treasurer or Recording Secretary of the LSMSAAA may be employed by the Louisiana School or the LSMSA Board of Directors, if such a job provides any form of remuneration beyond reimbursement for expenses. Sitting as a member of the Board does not, in itself, qualify as employment by the school even if rewarded by some sort of monetary reward (e.g., per diem payments). The Natchitoches and Louisiana School liaisons may hold such employment. (e) No one may hold two LSMSAAA Executive Council offices simultaneously, with one exception: serving as Natchitoches Liaison does not preclude holding another post. - ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- D. Stephen Voss (dsvoss@wjh.harvard.edu) Eat your beans, then some mutton, Department of Government, GSAS don't pee ... and go on looking Harvard University after you obsession! Oh! my hypothesis! M-38 Littauer Bldg. Oh! my fame! I shall be immortal! Immortal! Cambridge, MA 02138 Doktor (from Wozzeck) - ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Sep 1997 16:23:58 -0400 (EDT) From: Dennis Voss Subject: Secs. 7.3-7.4: Crisis succession Here are two sections dealing with succession, one for when an elected officer is found to be ineligible, and one for other situations when an officer no longer may serve. I've skipped Section 7.2 because it gives details for elections, and seemed a little too complicated to run with so soon after Dues. The substantive points: (1) If someone wins but is found to be ineligible, the highest eligible vote getter takes the office immediately (unless the discovery is so much later that a new election has already taken place). (2) Any other situation of losing an officer, including a transfer from eligibility to ineligibility, kicks in succession lines detailed in Section 7.4. Basically, the LSMSAAA Vice President is first in line for *any* office, not just the Presidency. (3) Past officers of the LSMSAAA are high up in the succession line unless they've lost an impeachment. This could have a negative effect once in a while, if someone voted out of office for good reason then gets back the office again. But so far almost every LSMSAAA President has stepped down rather than lost election, and such people might be willing to fill out the end of someone's term in a pinch. And if someone does a really bad job they'll probably be impeached (since I'm making it kinda easy). (3) The final default on the succession line is appointment by either the LSMSAAA President or the Louisiana School Liaison. So the only way the organization could collapse is if every officer resigned and LSMSA refused to restart it by locating a temporary replacement President. How would the section have worked with our last crisis? First, the President and Secretary stepped down. The Vice President would have become eligible next. But this person was successfully impeached under the rules of impeachment we will have in the new Constitution (although not, I should add, under the old constitution). So that left only one individual, Micah Luftig. Micah then would have a choice: ascend to the Presidency, or allow the Louisiana School Liaison (currently Dr. Loftin) to appoint a new one. If Micah had took the job, he would have to check with a few past officers of the LSMSAAA to see if they wanted the lower jobs, but if they didn't, he could appoint the V.P. and Secretary and ask Dr. Loftin to appoint the Treasurer. One last note: We've constantly been struggling with the question of how independent to make the LSMSAAA, and how much to tie it to the Louisiana School. The compromise I've tried to work out is that LSMSA can ignore the LSMSAAA most of the time, but when it runs into an insurmountable crisis the school will have authority to set things right if the administration wishes (e.g., pick a new President or Treasurer). 7.3 Election of ineligibles Should an ineligible candidate appear on a ballot inadvertently and win election, the office devolves at point of discovery to the valid candidate who received the greatest number of votes, unless an intervening election has provided a qualified officer for the post in question. 7.4 Crisis succession (a) Should the President resign, fall out of eligibility, lose an impeachment proceeding, become incapable of performing required duties, or otherwise vacate the office, the Vice President becomes the new LSMSAAA President. However, if the Vice President simultaneously becomes ineligible to serve or is unwilling to accept the promotion, the presidency follows this line of succession until someone is both eligible and willing: the Treasurer, the Recording Secretary, the previous LSMSAAA President, the previous LSMSAAA Vice President, an appointee of the Louisiana School Liaison. (b) Should the Vice President move to a different post on the Executive Council, resign, fall out of eligibility, lose an impeachment proceeding, become incapable of performing required duties, or otherwise vacate the office, the vice presidency follows this line of succession until someone is both eligible and willing: the previous LSMSAAA President, the previous LSMSAAA Vice President, the current LSMSAAA Treasurer, the current LSMSAAA Recording Secretary, an appointee of the LSMSAAA President. (c) Should the Treasurer move to a different post on the Executive Council, resign, fall out of eligibility, lose an impeachment proceeding, become incapable of performing required duties, or otherwise vacate the office, the Vice President (if elected) becomes the new LSMSAAA Treasurer. However, if the Vice President simultaneously becomes ineligible to serve or is unwilling to accept the promotion, the office of Treasurer follows this line of succession until someone is both eligible and willing: the previous LSMSAAA Treasurer, the previous LSMSAAA President, the previous LSMSAAA Vice President, the Recording Secretary (if elected), an appointee of the Louisiana School Liaison. (d) Should the Recording Secretary move to a different post on the Executive Council, resign, fall out of eligibility, lose an impeachment proceeding, become incapable of performing required duties, or otherwise vacate the office, the Vice President becomes the new LSMSAAA Recording Secretary. However, if the Vice President simultaneously becomes ineligible to serve or is unwilling to accept the promotion, the office of Recording Secretary follows this line of succession until someone is both eligible and willing: the previous LSMSAAA Recording Secretary, the previous LSMSAAA President, the previous LSMSAAA Vice President, an appointee of the LSMSAAA President. (e) Should the Natchitoches Liaison resign, fall out of eligibility, lose an impeachment proceeding, become incapable of performing required duties, or otherwise vacate the office, the LSMSAAA President should appoint an eligible and willing Natchitoches Liaison with all deliberate speed. (f) Should the Louisiana School Liaison resign, fall out of eligibility, become incapable of performing required duties, or otherwise vacate the office, the Director of the Louisiana School should appoint a new Louisiana School Liaison with all deliberate speed. Until such appointment, the previous Louisiana School Liaison may act in that capacity if still eligible and willing. (g) Notwithstanding anything written in this section, no past officer who lost an impeachment proceeding in the General Assembly may attain a post on the Executive Council by virtue of having held that previous office. However, if the impeached officer subsequently won election to another post in the line of succession, or is appointed to an office, that person is still eligible. - ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- D. Stephen Voss (dsvoss@wjh.harvard.edu) Eat your beans, then some mutton, Department of Government, GSAS don't pee ... and go on looking Harvard University after you obsession! Oh! my hypothesis! M-38 Littauer Bldg. Oh! my fame! I shall be immortal! Immortal! Cambridge, MA 02138 Doktor (from Wozzeck) - ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Sep 1997 17:35:02 -0500 From: "Brian Beavers" Subject: Re: Section 7.1 -- Officer Eligibility (fwd) >> I'm not quite sure (especially since I just slept through the ride from Alexandria to Dallas yesterday) whether >> this 75 mile radius includes Shreveport. Does it include Ruston? I think that anyone living in either area >> should be elligible to serve as Natchitoches liaison; if a stretch of this threshold is necessary, I don't think it >> terribly unreasonable of a stretch to include Shreveport and/or Ruston. > From: > Shreveport, LA > To: > Natchitoches, LA > Total Distance: > 72.5 miles (122.5 km) > From: > Ruston, LA > To: > Natchitoches, LA > Total Distance: > 79.0 miles (133.5 km) I would think that shreveport and ruston would be acceptible for LSMSA liason. I make the trip from ruston (since i'm at tech) to Natchitoches quite often and keep up pretty well with things going on there (faculty and current students i taught at LSMSA summer school help keep me informed). Someone else could do the same pretty easily. It's about 1.5 hours from Ruston and a little over an hour to Shreveport if you're making good time. Of course the best situation is that someone already there in Natchitoches take the job if the person is committed to keeping up with the school, or in Rachel's case, work there. Maybe an approximate travel time would be an appropriate limit on the area for Natchitoches liason... I don't know if i'd support that, but we might should consider it. Brian - ----------------------------------------------------------------- | Brian Daniel Beavers, a.k.a. beavs -O beavs@linknet.net | | Louisiana Tech University bdb010@math.latech.edu | | LSMSA Class of '96 http://www.LaTech.edu/~bdb010 | - ----------------------------------------------------------------- | 127 Beavers Road P.O. Box 4027 T.S. | | Anacoco, LA 71403 Ruston, LA 71272 | | 318.239.6810 318.257.4406 | - ----------------------------------------------------------------- | See the constellation ride across the sky | | No cigar, no lady on his arm | | Just a guy made of dots and lines --TMBG | - ----------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Sep 1997 22:40:41 -0700 (PDT) From: "Andre' DeHon" Subject: Re: Secs. 7.3-7.4: Crisis succession WOW Ok, first let me acknowledge that this is a difficult issue. Being an engineer I'm probably a bit more visually oriented so I had to draw the following diagrams to help me sort out what was going on here. > 7.4 Crisis succession > (a) Should the President resign, fall out of eligibility, > lose an impeachment proceeding, become incapable of performing > required duties, or otherwise vacate the office, the Vice > President becomes the new LSMSAAA President. However, if the > Vice President simultaneously becomes ineligible to serve or is > unwilling to accept the promotion, the presidency follows this > line of succession until someone is both eligible and willing: > the Treasurer, the Recording Secretary, the previous LSMSAAA > President, the previous LSMSAAA Vice President, an appointee of > the Louisiana School Liaison. P <- VP <- T <- RS <- prev P <- prev VP <- appoint > (b) Should the Vice President move to a different post on > the Executive Council, resign, fall out of eligibility, lose an > impeachment proceeding, become incapable of performing required > duties, or otherwise vacate the office, the vice presidency > follows this line of succession until someone is both eligible > and willing: the previous LSMSAAA President, the previous LSMSAAA > Vice President, the current LSMSAAA Treasurer, the current > LSMSAAA Recording Secretary, an appointee of the LSMSAAA > President. VP <- prev P <- Prev VP <- T <- RS <- appoint ...but I thought the VP was an officer in waiting? Taking an active officer actually covering some duty to replace VP doesn't seem beneficial (and, perhaps, that's why you pick on the prev. P/VP before going to T). > (c) Should the Treasurer move to a different post on the > Executive Council, resign, fall out of eligibility, lose an > impeachment proceeding, become incapable of performing required > duties, or otherwise vacate the office, the Vice President (if elected) > becomes the new LSMSAAA Treasurer. However, if the Vice > President simultaneously becomes ineligible to serve or is > unwilling to accept the promotion, the office of Treasurer > follows this line of succession until someone is both eligible > and willing: the previous LSMSAAA Treasurer, the previous LSMSAAA > President, the previous LSMSAAA Vice President, the Recording > Secretary (if elected), an appointee of the Louisiana School Liaison. T <- VP <- prev T <- prev P <- prev VP <- RS <- appoint Not clear it would be a net benefit to lose the RS to cover the Treasurer position -- but you do have the "willing" clause allowing a responsible RS to turn down the position if he/she believes it is in the best interest of the organization to remain in that position. > (d) Should the Recording Secretary move to a different post > on the Executive Council, resign, fall out of eligibility, lose > an impeachment proceeding, become incapable of performing > required duties, or otherwise vacate the office, the Vice > President becomes the new LSMSAAA Recording Secretary. However, > if the Vice President simultaneously becomes ineligible to serve > or is unwilling to accept the promotion, the office of Recording > Secretary follows this line of succession until someone is both > eligible and willing: the previous LSMSAAA Recording Secretary, > the previous LSMSAAA President, the previous LSMSAAA Vice > President, an appointee of the LSMSAAA President. RS <- VP <- prev RS <- prev P <- prev VP <- appoint > (e) Should the Natchitoches Liaison resign, fall out of > eligibility, lose an impeachment proceeding, become incapable of > performing required duties, or otherwise vacate the office, the > LSMSAAA President should appoint an eligible and willing > Natchitoches Liaison with all deliberate speed. Is there the option of circular successions? VP resigns. T -> VP T now vacant VP -> T :-) Why is there an "(if elected)" clause for VP succession to T but not for VP succession to RS? Is there no option for special elections to replace officers? If we have an active president, would it be better to allow the president (or some combination of him and his remaining officers) to appoint successors rather than throwing authority to the LSMSA Liason? (yes, it complicates things since the text must be written to handle both the case where the presidency is filled through succession and the case where all offices are vacated simultaneously). Andre' ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 11:04:43 -0400 (EDT) From: Dennis Voss Subject: Re: Secs. 7.3-7.4 On Tue, 16 Sep 1997, Andre' DeHon wrote: > VP <- prev P <- Prev VP <- T <- RS <- appoint > > ...but I thought the VP was an officer in waiting? > Taking an active officer actually covering some duty to replace VP doesn't > seem beneficial (and, perhaps, that's why you pick on the prev. P/VP before > going to T). My goal was to build in the maximal flexibility when someone drops out, with the exception of isolating the Treasurer's post from unelected people. But perhaps you are right, and I shouldn't even allow for a Treasurer or Secretary to opt for the VP job, or the Secretary to opt for the Treasurer's job. My only argument for it was that these other officers might wish to get closer to the Presidency. > Is there the option of circular successions? > > VP resigns. > T -> VP > T now vacant > VP -> T No, that wasn't what I intended; I wanted to bring in new blood (from the previous officer pool). I need to think of a convenient clarification of the term "previous" that will prevent this. Thanks. > Why is there an "(if elected)" clause for VP succession to T but > not for VP succession to RS? > If we have an active president, would it be better to allow the > president (or some combination of him and his remaining officers) to > appoint successors rather than throwing authority to the LSMSA Liason? Actually, only with the Treasurer's post do we call on the LSMSA Liaison if an active President is in place. The reason for this is the same for the "if elected" qualifier -- I do not want the LSMSAAA President directly or indirectly appointing a Treasurer. In Section 4, I've drawn up the Executive Council so that the Treasurer plays a crucial checks-and-balances role with the other offices. > Is there no option for special elections to replace officers? No, since elections are so costly relative to the LSMSAAA budget, since electoral protections need not be extreme (the LSMSAAA doesn't have police powers, after all!), and since crises almost certainly can be handled by the officers simply working out a solution until the next election, I wanted to omit such a requirement. Do you consider this inadvisable? steve - ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- D. Stephen Voss (dsvoss@wjh.harvard.edu) Eat your beans, then some mutton, Department of Government, GSAS don't pee ... and go on looking Harvard University after you obsession! Oh! my hypothesis! M-38 Littauer Bldg. Oh! my fame! I shall be immortal! Immortal! Cambridge, MA 02138 Doktor (from Wozzeck) - ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ End of LSMSAAA Constitution Digest V1 #12 *****************************************